Sunday, 26 February 2023

Feed the Beast by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Buy it from Abe Books    


Pádraig has such a power to speak the insights of your deepest longing – most often he offers the cooling balm of healing on our wounds, he speaks of reconciliation – wrongs can only truly be righted when we come together.


But this work speaks with voice of anger, a voice sharp with pain – and it is challenging as a result – this is much darker than we usually get from Pádraig – but it is also comforting for that exact same reason – all his work on reconciliation comes, not from a place of indifference, but from this place of rage.


The opening poem …


The Butcher of Eden

Now God made Adam and Eve coasts of skins and dressed them – Genesis 3:21


And when he was finished,

he scraped fat

from the backs of stretched skins,

wiped the blood,

sewed the seams,

bit the thread with teeth

and said:

Dress yourselves in these.


And they said:

what is this verb?


God shoved his knife into the earth, and said:

It’s like make believe

but for your body.


They looked at all the meat

still steaming

from when it was alive.


God said: Eat.

And watched while

beast of Eden fed

on beasts of Eden.

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